Don't Let Social Recruiting Steal Your Talent – 9/17/2014

Recruiting under the dome

The CBS series Under the Dome explores what happens to the people of a small town when they’re completely cut off from the rest of the world. It’s a tale of endurance and intrigue, and a happy break from reruns on the network channels. For recruiters, however, it’s also a guide to how best to implement post-social recruiting, the next stage in using the Web as a social medium for talent acquisition.

In the TV show, the citizens of Chester’s Mill, Maine, suddenly find themselves locked inside a huge impenetrable dome. People can see in and out of the enclosure, but they can’t pass through it. In effect, there’s the rest of the world on the outside and a small, clearly demarked community on the inside. It’s the perfect metaphor for post-social recruiting.

To date, social recruiting has been an exercise in using commercial social media sites to find, connect, and communicate with talented prospects. Recruiters should use these commercial or popular social recruiting websites sparingly. Whether it’s one of the well-known social networking websites or not, what you do and with whom you do it with on social media websites is in the public domain. In effect, you’re trying to connect with top prospects “outside the dome.”

Oh sure, you can set your social recruiting group private, but doing so doesn’t prevent the web host from seeing who’s participating. Why is that a problem? Because, unlike job boards or a personal networks, some social recruiting websites sell job postings to your competitors enabling them to target the very same prospects with whom you’re trying to network and build relationships. This means that by using social recruiting websites beyond scouting applicants and not a more protective, ‘dome-like’ recruitment platform, you are allowing your competitors not only to mooch off your hard work, but potentially steal your candidates.

Talent acquisition under the dome

Post-social recruiting involves building online relationships with top talent in the privacy of your own corporate website. Unlike today’s job application pages (whether they’re called a “career center” or simply labeled “employment”), this domed area is a protected space for networking with the kinds of passive prospects you meet on social media sites. Because it’s under your dome, however, your networking strategies and the resulting relationships are hidden from the public, including your competitors.

Here’s how talent acquisition under the dome works.

First, identify top healthcare prospects and invite them to your domed community. What value proposition would encourage such fickle talent to make the pilgrimage? The opportunity to learn the principles and practices of the single most important skill for success in today’s hyper turbulent workplace—effective career self-management.

Second, you establish a neighborhood that’s adjacent and linked to your job application page. This neighborhood is branded as your employer’s “careerstead”—a virtual homestead for the careers of talented people. Why do they need such a place? Because even the best talent are now on their own; organizations no longer provide the career management support they used to offer their employees.

Third, you operate the “careerstead” as a professional service community, building relationships with prospects by helping them learn and practice the best strategies and tactics not for job search, but for career advancement. How do you acquire this content? By using internal resources if you have them or external resources (e.g., career book authors or counselors) if you don’t, and by using social features on your site (e.g., discussion forums and blogs) to promote wisdom sharing among peers.

Yes, there’s a cost to developing and maintaining such a post-social campaign, but it’s no more than what you already invest in pages and groups on commercial social media sites. The difference is that your return on that investment is likely to be much greater because it is achieved under the dome where it is protected from the prying eyes and intrusive acts of others.

Thanks for reading,
Peter
Visit me at Weddles.com

Peter Weddle is the author of over two dozen employment-related books, including A Multitude of Hope: A Novel About Rediscovering the American Dream, The Career Fitness Workbook: How to Find, Win & Hang Onto the Job of Your Dreams, The Career Activist Republic, The Success Matrix: Wisdom from the Web on How to Get Hired & Not Be Fired, and WEDDLE’s 2011/12 Guide to Employment Sites on the Internet. Get them at Amazon.com and Weddles.com today.